Rensselaer Republican, Volume 16, Number 9, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 November 1883 — The Time to Cut Timber. [ARTICLE]

The Time to Cut Timber.

Mr. Edmund Hersey, member of the Massachusetts board of agriculture; has been making some experiments, with white birches cut at different seasons, and. with the following results: He cut a lot of birch wood in August, and, without splitting, piled it up in the open air for fuel. The next spring he cut another lot, and also piled that in the weather without splitting. Both lots were overhauled in the following July or August. The lot which had remained in the pile a whole year was found perfectly sound and made good fuel, while that which had been cut in the spring and had been piled only about four month was practically worthless. Dr. Jabez Fisher, of Fitchburg, understands this difference between lumber cut in winter and summer so well that he contracts for all his grapevine posts to be cut in August. The finest railroad ties we ever saw, says The New England Farmer, were, cut in summer when the trees were in full leaf. The wood seasoned very rapidly, and, when handled, had a ring to it like steel when struck with a hammer. We are hot ready to recommend the cutting of all timber and fuel in summer, but we believe that farmers should know what the effect upon lumber is when cut at different seasons of the year. It would seem that there is no way in which the wood of a tree can be relieved of its sap so thoroughly, and be left in so sound a condition, as when the sap goes out through the leaves, or through the pores, jinring the season of full leaf.